5 The First Berserker: Khazan starter tips to help you survive
As with most Soulslike titles, The First Berserker: Khazan offers a tough and lengthy campaign that will push your skills to the limit. Whether you’re facing tense exploration through dangerous environments or facing off against massive bosses with equally massive health bars, you have a lot to deal with here.
As the opening hours of The First Berserker: Khazan unfold, you’ll learn a lot about how the game functions via in-game tutorials and a handy encyclopedia. But we’ve compiled a few additional tips to get you started with the game so you can be as prepared as possible for what’s ahead. Let’s take a look at our tips for The First Berserker: Khazan.
Take your time and grind when needed
The First Berserker: Khazan can be a brutally difficult game at times, especially on its Normal difficulty (more on that below). As such, grinding up even moderately better gear and increasing your levels just a bit can make a bigger impact than you’d expect. Don’t be afraid to find good grinding spots to help you get better prepared for bosses or tough areas.
Foes that yield a lot of Lacrima aren’t an uncommon thing to find near the end of a level. For instance, there’s a great grinding spot in the opening level right before you fight the game’s first main boss Yetuga. After dropping the cart down to the Blade Nexus here, you can head back up the cart and head right to find a large yeti creature. By using your charged heavy attack a few times, you can easily beat this guy down quickly. Rinse and repeat for a whopping 480 Lacrima per run (which is quite a lot early on). And if he runs off to fight the human foes below, you can go ahead and whoop their asses for even more Lacrima.
There’s no shame in playing on Easy
As stated before, The First Berserker: Khazan is an exceptionally challenging experience that is certain to test the mettle of even seasoned Soulslike veterans. With that in mind, the game will provide you an opportunity to bump the difficulty down early in your adventure. There’s no shame in opting to go this route, as the goal of any game is to have fun playing it.
That being said, some trophies/achievements are disabled when playing on Easy. Keep this in mind if you’re going for 100% completion. But you can always consider this route as preparation for a harder future run. Ya know, just ease yourself into it!
Also, if you didn’t swap to Easy when prompted by the game, you can find the difficulty settings under the Accessibility tab in your Settings menu. Here, you can also bump things back up to Normal at any point.
Experiment as much as you’d like
The First Berserker: Khazan has multiple weapon types and a lot of different skills you can invest in for each of them. Part of the fun of this brutal Soulslike experience is figuring out which of these weapon and skill setups work best for you. Since you can respec your skill points for free at any time, you should experiment with all the weapon types and as many of their skills as possible to see if you can find a build that feels just right.
Blocking tends to work better than dodging
Your build and playstyle will determine what works best for you between dodging and blocking in The First Berserker: Khazan, but in our experience, blocking seems to be the safest choice in a lot of situations. You can absorb quite a few hits while blocking even at the beginning of your journey, and investing in the appropriate stats to bolster this even further can make you quite a tank as you continue through the game. Because you generally won’t take any damage at all when blocking, you can use this method to patiently wait out difficult enemies or bosses, waiting for just the right time to get in a hit or two.
Of course, if a defensive playstyle isn’t your cup of tea, you can also weave in plenty of parries to save your stamina and whittle away your opponent’s. And it goes without saying that dodging remains a viable strategy against certain types of attacks (especially grabs), so don’t discount it entirely!
Complete Bonus Training for extra rewards
The First Berserker: Khazan is a very loot-driven game, so you’ll find a smorgasbord of weapons, armor, consumables, and more as you defeat enemies and explore the environments of each level. However, there’s a relatively well-hidden additional way you can score some useful items, and it also offers a nice dopamine hit in the process: Bonus Training challenges.
Bonus Training challenges are found within Daphrona’s Codex, which is accessed in your menu. You’ll notice a treasure icon beside the names of some enemies. If you look at their codex entry, you’ll see challenge that can be completed to earn a listed item. These usually ask you to defeat an enemy type in a specific manner or without taking damage. Whatever the challenges ask of you, make sure you return to the Codex entry after completing it to claim your prize!
PlayStation Portal tips: 5 settings to adjust right away
So, you’ve got a brand-new PlayStation Portal and are looking forward to the hours and hours of fun you’ll have using its Remote Play functionality to play your PlayStation 5 games. Well, yeah, you should be excited — it’s pretty rad, after all. But when you first dive in, you may want to take a look at some of the device’s settings to be sure things are set up exactly how you like them. Here are five settings we recommend adjusting on your PlayStation Portal.
Decide your preferred vibration intensity
Controller vibration can be a cool feature, but not everyone likes to feel it super strongly (or at all). Luckily, you can adjust the intensity of the vibration to meet your personal preferences.
Doing this requires you to go to Settings > Controller > Vibration Intensity. You can choose between Strong, Medium, or Weak — or you can just turn vibration off altogether.
Select the intensity of the trigger effect
Similarly to vibration, the trigger effects from the PS5’s DualSense controller are available on the PlayStation Portal’s triggers. This can add immersion in some games, but it can also be frustrating if you’re not the type of person who wants that extra layer of realism to your gaming.
Smite 2 sticks to most of what made the first Smite so successful, including all of the basic gameplay mechanics and design philosophies the popular MOBA is best known for. However, this sequel has changed the way roles work, doing away with the original’s class-based design in favor of a loose and flexible system that allows you to use any god in any role if you build and play them correctly. While there are still gods best suited for certain roles, the creativity this extra freedom allows can be very rewarding for new and returning players alike. Here’s what you need to know about each role in Smite 2.
Solo
The Solo roster is comprised of characters designed for, well, the Solo lane. Because this is a 1v1 lane, your goal is to clear waves more quickly while also dealing as much damage to your opponent as possible. Because you need to equally be able to survive their incoming attacks, you’ll generally want to focus on a Bruiser-style build, which consists of both offensive and defensive items. Counterbuilding is more important here than in nearly any other role, as you’ll spend quite a lot of time engaged in a battle of attrition seeing who can force the other person out of the lane to score a few hits on a tower. Later in the game, you’ll become a frontliner alongside the Support to help control the flow of teamfights.
Recommended god for newbies:
Chaac offers low cooldowns, solid lane clear, and a powerful area-of-effect ult that is easy to land and silences foes momentarily. He also has sustainability via an ability that self-heals.
Jungle
The Jungle role is among the hardest to master in Smite 2, as you’ll spend your time rotating around the map and learning when you need to rush to the aid of your teammates. This is a job for those who enjoy playing as an assassin of sorts by ganking enemy players from each of the three lanes. However, it’s not as easy as just being a killing machine because you’ll also need to quickly and consistently farm jungle camps throughout the map while you plan to make those moves on out-of-position foes. If you aren’t clearing camps (or have them stolen by the enemy Jungler), you’ll fall behind in level and make things more difficult on your team. It can take quite some time to learn how to play Jungle effectively, but when you do, you can turn the tides of a match in mere moments.
Recommended god for newbies:
Thor offers an easy-to-hit stun and straightforward kit designed to deal huge damage. Additionally, his ultimate ability allows him to cover a lot of ground to catch unsuspecting opponents.
Middle
The Middle role is among the most important in a match of Conquest because the Middle lane is a central convergence spot for large team pushes. Your goal here is to clear your lane very quickly and keep your opponent pushed back to their tower as much as possible so that your team can use your lane as a way to cross back and forth to other lanes without much fear of repercussions. Winning the Middle lane can often be what leads your group to victory, as it will funnel both teams to the center of the map to engage in a large-scale battle that, if your team plays well, could result in a deicide (team wipe) for your foes. In the late-game, this is likely to give you a chance to take down their titan and wrap up the match.
Recommended god for newbies:
Kukulkan has excellent lane clearing capabilities, an attack that slows foes hit, and a very hard-hitting ultimate ability. His dash can also let him get in and out of engagements quickly.
Support
The Support role is exactly what it sounds like: supporting your team and setting them up for success. You’ll begin matches in the Duo lane with your Carry, but as the match progresses and they’re clearing the lane alone, you’ll need to move around the map to assist others, too. Support gods tend to have abilities that lock enemies down or displace them so that your team can dish out massive damage. Depending on the god, though, you may also need to help via healing or bolstering your team with stat-boosting abilities. Your job as a Support isn’t to earn the largest damage numbers at the end of a match, but you’ll be every bit as important to your team’s success as those who do.
Recommended god for newbies:
Khepri provides a lot of control opportunities via a stun and a grab, both of which are fairly easy to land. Plus, his ultimate ability can be used to save himself or another player from death.
Carry
The Carry role is designed to provide your team with a deadly damage dealer that can quite literally carry the team to victory in the late-game. Your goal is to begin in Duo lane with a Support and work diligently at scoring a few early kills while farming your lane. In most cases, you won’t be majorly powerful in that early part of the match, but your damage will begin to ramp up rapidly after you’ve built 3-4 items, allowing you to spring into action in later teamfights and rapidly destroy your opponents. All of this damage will help you take down objectives quickly as well, making you a vital component of your team’s strategy beginning around the 15-20 minute mark and beyond as they work hand-in-hand with you to shred through anything in your path.
Recommended god for newbies:
Cupid can provide support for himself and others via healing, has a dash for quick escapes, and can dish out solid auto-attack damage. His wide area-of-effect ultimate ability can even slow enemies down for big damage opportunities.
PowerWash Simulator’s latest seasonal update is here, and it’s festive
With all of the political turmoil right now, it can be hard to get in the festive spirit — but PowerWash Simulator wants to help with its latest free update, offering a Christmas-themed ice rink map to explore and clean up. You might think you’ve gotten your fill of that already, especially if you had to clean real-world decorations before bringing them in from the garage, but we promise that digital muck is a lot more fun to clean up than the real thing. And we’ll take digital spiders over the real ones any day of the week. Grab a nice warm cup of hot chocolate, some comfortable shoes, and snuggle up for a night of the most fun cleaning you’ve ever done.
The update introduces a new, free DLC that comes with the ice rink area, as well as winter weather gear so that you can bundle up while on the job. The clothing includes a cleaning suit emblazoned with snowflakes, a candy cane theme for the sprayer, and more. If you’ve never played the game before, now’s the perfect chance. The update also comes with a free demo so you can get a taste of what makes this game so relaxing to play. If you find you enjoy it, there’s plenty more free DLC to check out yourself, as well as paid DLC for fans of Shrek and Warhammer: 40,000.
